CNC Verification Software and NX 1

[benatbei]

Hello,

We're currently using UGS ISV to simulate/verify toolpaths created in NX 4. It is not fulfilling all of our needs and we are likely moving to CG Tech Vericut within the next few months. From everything I've heard, it's the industry standard, and from my research it looks like it will do everything we want it to (robust in-process models, reading a posted and hand-edited G-code file, etc.) It also does not tie up Unigraphics while it's running.

Anyone have any advice? It would be much appreciated.

PS - We use/have: UG NX4, CMS Poseidon and Ares 5-axis, Fanuc control

Thanks,
Ben Eddy

CAD/CAM/Design
Bayview Edison Industries

 

[Candas]

I was using Vericut 5.3/5.4 for three years when I was a NC engineer.

It was a magnificent experience to work with Vericut software and in my opinion it is the best. You can "see" what is going to happen to the certainity of practically .001" if you have a powerful hardware. I recommend you to use more than 2GB RAM, very good graphical card and a dual processor system.

Be sure to setup all of the settings of Vericut according to your machines and controller carefully.

I recommend you to benefit from all of its capabilities (for example status > cutting conditions graph). Vericut 6 would probably be much more capable.

Regards,

Candas Urunga
Design Engineer

 

[benatbei]

Thanks, Candas

We did in fact end up going with Vericut. 6.1 was on my desk when I arrived this morning. We are actually having CG Tech set up our machine(s) for us and do some on-site training as part of the deal. Our UG resellers were here not too long ago and when I told them we were likely going to purchase Vericut they didn't seem surprised at all. It seems like it's a staple for most CNC machine shops.

We have some pretty decent HP workstations with 4 gigs of RAM. When we switched to these it made a huge difference generating large tool paths, etc.

Thank you very much for your advice, Candas!

Ben Eddy

 

[Candas]

Hello Ben,

I am pleased that you were end up with Vericut and will be switching to 4gig HP's. Because naturally Vericut need lots of RAM and while checking long programs with small tolerances it can easily reach 2 gigs. If your system would have less, it could give "out of memory" error.

I recommended also dual processing before, because as an example you can postprocess a long NC program in UG background while checking another NC program toolpaths in Vericut. Also your workstation would probably be more fluent.

It is very good to have CG Tech with you in setup and on-site training. I met with CG Tech people couple of times while they were at our company for customer visits and can say that they were very capable. I recommend you to machine some parts(especially 5X if your machine(s)capable) with them and learn all that they can give.

I always watched my NC programs at the shop till to the end(of course frequently going back and forth to the office) with my operator friends altough if they last in the midnight. With that experience, I can easily say that you could also match especially volume removal rate and contact area informations in Vericut's cutting graphs, with "audial information that you hear" in real machining.

I used Vericut's capabilities iteratively and it helped me a lot for reaching "NC program perfection".

I hope these information would also help you.

Regards,

Candas Urunga
Design Engineer